Chinese New Year Dragon Parade 2012

Today's post follows the theme of last week's 3D photo of the Chinatown Gateway Arch, in that the Lunar New Year is around this time of year.

Every year, there is a dragon dance through Chinatown down Somerset Street. Last year, I made a point of checking it out, and I got some great photos. The parade is physically short, only a handful of floats, but the performances and audience interaction stretches out the time of the parade.

The parade stretches twice as far if you count these four #2 buses that slipped by in a gap after being held up behind the dancers:

Downstairs

I've got a number of photos of the 1970's 120 University building from before it was demolished through the demolition and construction, which I might eventually compile into a post (I did post one). Only recently did I get a chance to go inside. It's quite impressive, with lots of open spaces, including high-floor views of Centretown from study areas.

There is one stairway that is pretty spacious, considering it's just a secondary stairway. Looking down a few floors worth of stairs is always cool. It's even better in 3D:

Source photos for the 3D images: Left, Right

The building also has a pretty impressive green wall in the atrium. Go check it out if you have the chance.

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images]
[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Peds on Weds: In case of fire hydrant, block sidewalk

Ever hear someone talk about a pole in the middle of a sidewalk or path but you suspect they're exaggerating the degree to which it's blocking pedestrians? Well I've got one for you, with a photo to prove it!

I'll quickly run through how it got there (why it did remains unknown...). The fixture in question is on Albert Street, at the site of the Lorne building, which I've blogged about in posts with the label 90 Elgin.

Here's the back of the Lorne building in May 2011, and the Albert Street sidewalk, looking east toward Elgin, with a fire hydrant and street light more or less at the edge of the sidewalk at the left:

Similar angle in August, after exterior demolition started. A rendering of the new building is on a sign:

In late November 2011, the sidewalk was incised down its length about a foot and a half behind the curb line:

The back two thirds of the sidewalk were removed by the end of November. The fire hydrant from previous photos is just on the other side of the streetlight. Ever wonder what's under the concrete of a sidewalk? Well, here's a photo of it anyway:

Piles were driven right at the cut line and wooden 4x4 fenceposts were strapped to them. Early December 2011.

The same scene from the Slater Street side, looking across to Albert. The piles are interleaved with wooden boards to hold the street up, as I described in detail for the EDC building at 150 Slater in a post in August 2009.

While the wasteland of the site is fun, here's a cropped closeup of the same shot. The hydrant is gone. I only noticed looking at these photos that the streetlight was actually strapped to an I-beam pile during this phase of construction. Weird, but I guess it works!

Since Elgin Street is along Confederation Boulevard, the slightly-less-ugly-than-normal NCC spec hoarding was attached to the fenceposts seen in the previous scene. Needless to say, the sidewalk was closed.

...Unless you work there. (Ever notice how big a tower crane's hook block actually is? If I were as far away from it was the tower crane's operator is, I'd be pretty spooked to have it so close to workers!)

The above shot was from June 2012, and it looked more or less the same as it did at the end of 2011.

By Mid-September, the wooden fencing was taken down and replaced with temporary modular metal fencing.

Cropping in again on the photo, the fire hydrant is still there, and, with the blue top indicating it's apparently still in service.

By the end of October, 2012, the streetlight was removed, and the hydrant is yellow. It's actually not the same hydrant as the one before, which suggests it might have been moved also.

In mid-November, they reinstated the sidewalk and put scaffolding over it since the towers were (and are) still under construction right next to it.

Only, uh...

I'm not sure why the hydrant is in the middle of the sidewalk (the one we've been following is in the distance; the one seen here is mid-block, closer to Metcalfe). Maybe the builder and the City couldn't agree on whether to put it at the front or back of sidewalk, so they split the difference.

For now, the scaffolding over it seems to be keeping the snow away. But when that's gone, I'm not sure how sidewalk plows are supposed to make their way along here.

Luckily, it's just a 'temporary' situation. In all likelihood, there will be a standpipe built into the wall of the building, and the sidewalk will be redone with the final, fancy landscaping.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

3D Thursday: Chinatown Gateway Arch

I've already written a number of posts on Ottawa Chinatown's Royal Gateway Arch, and I've assigned them the label Paifang to distinguish them from the rest of the Chinatown blog posts. But none were in 3D, so get your blue and red glasses out for this one! (Click to view larger for better 3D effect)

Source photos for the 3D images: Left, Right

This Sunday, February 10, 2013, is Chinese New Year (Snake).

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images] [Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

3D Thursday: St. Paul Church (Aylmer, QC)

St. Paul's church in Aylmer is obviously not in Centretown, but it's in the Ottawa area and its ruins will be demolished today. It was consumed by fire after it was struck by arsonist on the evening of June 11, 2009, and has been in ruin ever since. Click on this 3D photo to see it full screen for better effect:

A number of people posted videos of the fire to YouTube, including this shocking one of the high wooden steeple falling into a plume of fire.

A colleague of mine who lives within sight of the church sent me photos the following day, including this one:

When I was in the area a couple of months later, in August 2009, I snapped this photo, which shows signs of some tidying up of the stone walls:

St. Paul's church was a focal point of the town of Aylmer, which was home to many of my ancestors, for example: my grandmother was born in and grew up in a house practically across the street from the church, and her father was Mayor of Aylmer for a few years in the first half of the 20th century (as was his brother-in-law). Both married their respective spouses at St. Paul's.

Recent articles in the Ottawa Citizen and CBC summarize the bureaucratic gridlock that led to the decision to demolish the remains. That conclusion was partly due to the church not being insured sufficiently to allow a full reconstruction, partly due to the local governments' unwillingness to preserve the heritage, and largely due to lawyers' overabundance of caution.

In anticipation of the imminent demolition, I went by for the last time this past Christmas Day to take some 3D photos for posterity.

At least in Centretown, when the Somerset House partially collapsed, we held on to what is left until it can be restored. By contrast, once you tear the buliding down, it's gone forever. Then it, and the history it represents, is easily forgotten.

Which do you remember better: Ottawa's former City Hall at Elgin and Queen, or Lisgar Collegiate Institute?

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images]

Vertical mess, Preston and Albert

There's something about massive amounts of utility wires on a streetpost that compels me to photograph them, so indulge me for a moment on this one. Backed by a clear blue sky, the wires, while numerous, are clean and tidy, and clearly was installed relatively recently (as was the still-green wooden pole they're suspended on).

Three corners of the foreground are occupied by an OC Transpo bus flag for the #16, a Preston street name sign, and a Little Italy-style pedestrian lantern. These provide a sense of place to the photo, identifying the corner as that of Preston and Albert. The fourth quadrant is filled in by a street light and a traffic control signal post, providing some balance. Lastly, the green of the leaves on the right provide some reassurance that this isn't some desolate concrete jungle but a place where a long presence has allowed the trees to grow high.

That photo was taken back in October when a group of DCA members went on a walkabout with City traffic engineers as part of Public Advisory Committee (PAC) discussions on pedestrian safety for the redesign of Albert Street (to be implemented only after LRT is complete in 2108). From the same set is this shot of the group itself.

Since I'm already being a bit poetic on the photo descriptions today, I'm including this next one for a reason, too. The literal description is that the group is standing on the south sidewalk of Albert Street at the pathway connecting to Walnut Court, about a block west of the photo above, taken on the same PAC walkabout.

The curiosity here is more of a tongue-in-cheek metaphor. Note that everyone in the group is circled around Eric Darwin, the voluminous blogger behind the popular blog, West Side Action. Eric is facing the City engineers, and the community members are standing behind him (and I'm in the middle of the road behind a camera—which could also be interpreted metaphorically a few ways, ha!). This arrangement is almost like a literal illustration of how the community consultation process often seems to pass, as described by Eric himself via David Reevely's blog. Of course Eric isn't the centre of discussions at all PAC meetings, but being retired, he has a lot of time to come up with ideas and share them, and if by sheer volume there are enough good ones that people often listen.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

Monday of the new year

It's Monday. The holidays are over, the city rediscovers its regular routine, and Ottawa's winter continues to hit us with its full arsenal. I find that the cold and dark of autumn wears away at me until the snow falls, when the thrill of biking in the snow keeps my spirits up until the holiday season. In January, after the holidays, the fun of the snow wears away, and I find don't start to cheer up until the canal opens, giving me a reason to enjoy winter again. (Someone from a rainier part of the country once observed that Ottawans tend to get cranky if we go more than three days without sunshine)

But as miserable as this time of year can be for me, at least I can take refuge in the office. The garbage collector operating this truck had a breakdown along Gladstone in last week's snowy weather and needed to get towed. Then, presumably, he had to get another truck and continue fishing out people's trash bins from the snowbanks. In the dark.

I feel sorry for the guy; I think we've all had one of those days where one thing goes wrong after another. Hopefully your Monday is going well by comparison!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Peds on Weds: Survivors of Metcalfe

Metcalfe Street has always been tree-lined, but it feels more constrained after they built apartment buildings right up to the back of the sidewalk like here at MacLaren:

The trees lean into the streets because they couldn't grow into the building, and they were chopped off at the power lines. Meanwhile, trucks have gotten bigger and chip away at the tree bark. It's a wonder that the trees survive.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]
[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]